


Though Your Face Is Lovely

by ChibiSquirt



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel Noir, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Anal Sex, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Hand Jobs, I invite everyone to write that AU if they would like, I'm so sorry I couldn't make it work, M/M, MCU Tony / MCU Steve is endgame, Marvel: Noir Tony / MCU Steve, Multiversal travel, Multiverse, Mutual Pining, N/MCU Stony is just a transitional phase, No Steve/Tony/Tony, Oral Sex, Rimming, Steve Picking People Up, Steve Rogers Has Moves, Steve Rogers Has to reinforce his bedroom wall so he doesn't break it while jerking off, The Noir Tony/ MCU Steve is not endgame, steve rogers has a big dick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-18
Updated: 2017-05-18
Packaged: 2018-11-01 21:45:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10930653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChibiSquirt/pseuds/ChibiSquirt
Summary: Tony Stark is an experienced adventurer by the time he's working beside Captain America and the Howling Commandos... which is why he should have known better than to pick up the artifact.  Transported into another universe, he's going to have to find a way home, even if it means dealing with these "Avengers" people, some of whom seemawfullyfamiliar...





	Though Your Face Is Lovely

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gottalovev](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gottalovev/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Shellhead](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/291030) by Gottalovev. 



> First things first: Gottalovev, thank you for being an absolutely fabulous RBB buddy! *blows kisses* You held my hand through all the parts that made me nervous, were very easy-going, and you seem to like the fic okay. You are a *dream*, and it was a real pleasure working with you! 
> 
> Next, thank you to those who beta'ed this, Cluegirl and Buhfly. Between the two of you, you have *mostly* managed to get my commas under control! ;P Thank you so much!
> 
> Lastly, I read and re-read the Iron Man: Noir series for this fic (and I recommend it!), but I have not read any other Noir canon which may be out there. Which is to say, if I messed something up, please just message me and I'll see what we can do to fix it.

**CHAPTER 1**

 

To be fair, it was probably all his own fault.  

In fact, Tony would later insist that he was sure of it; the facts spoke for themselves, after all.

Fact:  It had been Tony’s idea to investigate the decrepit Polish fortress.  Furthermore, it had been his instincts and observational skills which had identified the false wall.  The false wall, in turn, had opened to reveal extensive Hydra operations in the dungeon and that was where they had found the device.  

Fact:  Steve—Captain Rogers—was _technically_ in command on this mission.   _Technically,_ because it turned out that it was difficult to command a man who had been your personal role model and hero when you were a youth, especially when the man in question looked at you the way Tony looked at Steve.  

Fact:  Captain Rogers, who was technically in command, had expressly told Tony not to touch the device.  The phrase, “We don’t know what it could do!” had, regrettably, been uttered.

Fact:  Tony had absolutely ignored him.  Somewhere back in New York, Pepper and Rhodey—both of whom were overseeing Tony’s business interests rather than attempting to enter the war at the front, where they would likely have been sidelined into uselessness—were spontaneously rolling their eyes.

Fact:  Captain Rogers had tried to stop him, reaching out one delectably thick arm as if he could shove Tony back, even going so far as to bound up next to him so nearly that Tony could feel his unnatural warmth on his back.  He hadn’t quite been fast enough, though.

Tony had even laughed about it.  “Don’t worry, Captain,” he had tossed back as he reached out and picked up the device.  “I’m sure it will be—”

 _—fine,_ he didn’t finish, as the device flared and the whole world went...

...vaguely pink?

 

* * *

 

The pastel haze faded, and Tony blinked sparks out of his eyes.

And then dodged.

He was still in the dungeon of the Polish castle, in a room that had been a Hydra officer’s quarters, based on appearances:  plush carpets, lavish bedspread on the bunk, a curio filled with grotesqueries...  That last was where Tony had originally found the device, and also why it had drawn his attention:  it was the only object in the cabinet that wasn’t in some way grisly, and was therefore instantly suspicious.  

When the device had activated, Tony had been standing in front of that cabinet, and when it faded, he still was... _sort of._  The cabinet itself had changed; the glass front was now cracked as if it had been deliberately broken into, the baroque scrolling woodwork had gained scratches, and the shelves themselves had become dusty.  It was as if the cabinet itself had been wrecked dozens of years ago and hadn’t been touched since—despite the fact that, mere seconds ago, it had been fine.

There was another prominent change, too: now there was someone here shooting at Tony.

When he and the Captain’s commandos had taken the fortress, there had been Hydra in the basement, _of course,_ but they had been largely rounded up and subdued in one way or another before the team started scouting the place for useful intel, or—in Tony’s case—significant artifacts.  But Tony had been doing this for too long, and too successfully, not to recognize the feeling of a gun pointed at his back.  Upon recognizing the prickling sensation on the back of his neck for what it was, he had instantly spun, crouched, and dived behind the nearest available cover—in this case, the bed, whose coverlet was no less elaborate than before, but significantly more moldy—just in time to escape a trio of bullets which embedded themselves in the wall and cabinet in front of which he had, a second ago, been standing.  

He peeked out from behind the unfortunately-lumpy-and-green duvet, scanning the room, and what he could see of the hallway, for the shooter.  There was a shadow falling on either side of the door, and each shadow was star-pointed as if cast by two different sources of light.  (Tony remembered the periodically-spaced bulbs, one of which had, indeed, been on either side of the door, which would neatly account for it.)

From the configuration, someone was on the floor of the hallway, crouching, ready to peer around the doorframe and fire; someone else, however, was up near the ceiling of the hallway, lurking.  From the fall of the shadow and based on Tony’s memory of the hallway—a memory which was, of course, _now unreliable, damn it—_ the mysterious second figure was braced between the uneven stone of the wall and the ceiling, pointed boots of some sort digging into the crumbling stone (unless they were exceptionally talented at shooting with their feet).  It would take some extraordinary strength, but then, since the Serum had been invented, Tony had almost gotten used to such feats—and besides, this was a deed achieved by regular human athletes in ordinary competition, even without the Serum.  

The question was, which of the two skulkers in the hallway had been targeting him:  the upper, the ground-level, or both?

Tony only thought for a second, watching the two shadows.  Then he reached through the shattered door of the curio to grab what appeared to be a crumbling alligator skull, hurdled the bed with one cringing arm planted squarely in the middle of the mushroom forest, and threw the skull at the crouching figure at floor level, rushing the door and diving to retrieve the now-unconscious soldier’s gun.  He pivoted again, raising his arm at the same time, coming to rest with his gun pointed at—

—at a strange blond agent, dressed in black and purple.  And armed with a _bow,_  of all things.

“What in the _world?”_ Tony blurted, understandably startled.

“You’re tellin’ me,” the man snorted in an unmistakably American accent—Midwestern, if Tony was any judge (he was).  The man relaxed his grip on the bow, pinning the arrow with the forefinger of his right hand and raising the left to tap at something in his ear—a portable radio, Tony was guessing.  “Houston, we have a problem,” he said, presumably also to his radio, since Tony was not and never had been named _Houston._

The blond man put his arrow back in his quiver, which whirred and apparently grasped it almost like an animate object.  Then he nonchalantly moved his hip and cartwheeled to the ground, coming to a stop three feet from Tony, bow casually grasped in his hand almost as if he’d forgotten it was a weapon.  

He never once, in the entire maneuver, took his eyes off of Tony.

Prudently, Tony lowered his stolen gun to his side.

 

* * *

 

“No, wait, _what?!”_

The thing was, Steve—Captain Rogers—being there, that Tony could have believed.  He even could have believed that they had somehow come into the future together, as was immediately obvious by the advances in technology—Tony was good, but he couldn’t make radios that small—and, unless Tony missed his guess, in clothing.  (The tight, not-armor-but-not-cloth-either pants were a dead giveaway.)  

But Tony drew the line at _alternate realities._

“Not that I don’t believe they exist, of course—I’m sure they do—but the kind of device that could transfer a person from one reality to the next, the kind of of _power_ that would be required for such a device is far beyond anything we have the capability to make,” he explained.  “There’s just no way—”

And then he stopped talking, all out of words, because suddenly there was an armored suit landing in the damned courtyard of the now-even-more-depressingly-old castle, and it was, Tony could see at a glance, a suit that was light years beyond anything he had ever been close to thinking about making.

Compared to his Iron Man behemoth, it landed like a butterfly alighting on a prized orchid, and Tony’s poor, artificially-sustained heart squeezed at the grace of it.

“Nevermind,” he breathed, not looking away from the sight.  Jesus, it was so small!  Heavier through the shoulders, but even there, miniscule compared to his own armor.  The gunmetal gray paint job was familiar, but the figure was far more humanoid than anything Tony had ever built, and he was fairly sure from the gun-spout peaking over its shoulder that it was more heavily armed than his was, too.  “Just— _damn!_  I am woefully underdressed to meet my doppelganger.”

He tried a charming smile on the surrounding men and woman—the _Avengers,_ he reminded himself—but they seemed more confused by his comment than anything else.  Then new-Captain-Rogers’ face cleared, and he said, “Oh—no, that’s not—Tony’s back in New York.  Or, probably he is.  I mean, he doesn’t—he’s not required to report his movements to us, or anything, if he wants to go to Vegas or something he _can,_ it’s just—New York.”  He held a hand out, palm up, in explanation. “Most likely place.”  

“Ah,” Tony said, as if that had explained _anything._ “But if your version of _me_ is in _New York,_ then who is...?”

The dark gray suit stopped its approach when it was about four feet away from Tony, the head tilting down towards its shoulder inquisitively.  “Guys,” it said, and even through the suit’s modifications, the voice sounded so familiar that Tony gasped, one hand rubbing covertly at his sternum.  “Guys, this is—this is not my Tones.”

“We put that together,” the arrow-guy said, while Tony felt his face do something awful.

 _“Rhodey,”_ he said, agonized.

The man in the suit froze, and then, moving deliberately, popped open the face-mask.

Tony caught his breath for a moment, studying the expression, the features, the—the everything.  Then, releasing his breath in a soft, controlled explosion, he ran a shaking hand down his face.  

Nose broader, eyes rounder, skin less beat-up by age and the elements...  

Devastating.

It wasn’t the same guy.  

“Okay,” Tony said, voice catching just a little, not much—no one would notice.  “Okay, _now_ I believe you.  It’s not the same universe.

“And I have to get back.”

  

**CHAPTER 2**

 

The gem had been confiscated when the Avengers escorted him into the courtyard, and now that they were all on their way to their HQ—presumably, somewhere in the States, although no one had specified where, exactly—in their incredibly fast jet—easily breaking the sound barrier, and no one seemed to be worried about fuel loads for some alarming reason—it was stashed in a locker towards the rear of the bird.  Tony, surrounded on all sides by Avengers, including the heartbreaking not-Rhodey, couldn’t reach it without being observed.

And, being observed, he would certainly be stopped.  His immediate, gut-level response to the discovery that he was in an alternate universe—the uncompromising, unambiguous declaration that he had to return home immediately—had been firmly rebuffed.

“We don’t know what the cost of the transfer between worlds is,” the voluptuous redhead had said, tilting her head to the side and studying Tony rather like a crow might study a birdwatcher who wasn’t quite well-enough concealed.

“We don’t know how it works, either,” the not-Rhodey had pointed out, rather more pragmatically, reaching up to carefully scratch his nose with one armored finger.

“And we don’t know how dangerous it may be,” not-Captain-Rogers had finished, crossing his arms and looking firm.  

Tony had narrowed his eyes, and made a conscious decision to wait on expressing his objections until after Rogers’ Serum dose had worn off, and he had shrunk back down to punchable size.

But these Avengers were obviously generous-hearted people, and inclined towards trusting him; they certainly weren’t subjecting him to the degree of scrutiny he would have expected.  Surely, he could wait until they exited the jet, placing himself towards the rear of the group; linger at the back of the pack; slip back to jimmy open the locker, and then use the device—which had activated instantly upon his touch, and therefore must not need much in the way of charging time—to get home again.

It would be simple.

 

* * *

 

It was not simple.  

The first few steps of the plan went well enough; he did, in fact, linger at the rear of the group, and he was, in fact, right next to the jet’s rear door as the group made their slow, meandering way towards the long, low, almost Frank-Lloyd-Wright-ish building which was (apparently) their headquarters.  

But just as he was about to slip back into the jet to retrieve the device, he found his way blocked by something...

...well...

...incredible.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, eyebrows shooting upward, “but what on Earth _are_ you?”

The man was purple, to start with.  He was wearing a cape.  He was floating six inches off of the ground.  And he had a stone implanted in his forehead—one suspiciously similar in design to the outer surface of the device which had transported Tony here, in fact.  He was also quite tall and broad, not in a handsome way, but with an uncanny angularity of frame that made him appear—well, Tony _would_ have said that it was subtly inhuman, except that the inhumanity of the... being... was already made quite well apparent by the _rest_ of him!

And, perhaps most bizarrely of all, he did not appear in the least to be alarmed by Tony’s question.  Instead, he merely bowed his head—or rather, moved it forward and down, without inclining it at all; a gesture of recognition, but not deference—and answered in a calm, even, British-accented voice.  

“I am The Vision.”

Tony watched him carefully for a second, taking in the semi-metallic texture of his skin and the not-quite-Brownian motion of his cape—which, Tony couldn’t help but notice, did not correspond to the currents of the faint breeze flowing around them.  “Are you a machine?” he couldn’t help asking.

The Vision gave his not-a-bow again.  “That is an excellent question,” he responded.

Tony didn’t blink.

Neither did The Vision.

Tony waited, wondering what the—man?  Machine?  Person?—would do.  

But he couldn’t wait forever; in a staring contest, The Vision had a distinct advantage over him, specifically his likely lack of _need_ to blink.  

Frustrated, Tony gave an elaborate shrug, and then turned away.  He would have to go after the stone another time.

“You bear quite a strong resemblance to Mr. Stark,” The Vision said from behind him.  Tony couldn’t help but notice the similarities between his voice and that of Mr. Jarvis, back at home, and he gave a little shuddering wince.  

“That’s because I am Mr. Stark,” he answered, not turning around.  “Just not the one from _this_ universe _,_ apparently.”

The Vision was silent for a couple of beats, and the, “Mr. Stark has all of what I can only term my loyalty,” he said.  

And then stopped.

After a moment, Tony realized that he wasn’t going to finish the thought; that whatever he was saying, he had, in fact, already said it.

“What does that mean?” he asked.

The Vision didn’t answer _that,_ either.

Frustrated, Tony spun around, ready to confront the android, but The Vision was gone as silently as he had arrived.

Unnerving, Tony decided.  Definitely unnerving.

On the other hand...  if The Vision was truly gone, Tony probably wasn’t going to get any better chance, was he?  Tony glanced behind him to where the rest of the group was still making their way towards the building—not even a minute had passed—and then bolted back up into the jet before any of them had the presence of mind to look around and see him standing there.

The locker in which the stone was stored was secured, but not—thank goodness—through any advanced, futuristic technology; no, it was a good, old-fashioned combination lock, and Tony felt almost cheerful as he pulled out his picks.  

Granted, it was a _good_ lock—Tony was genuinely impressed by the number of tumblers—but Tony had started picking locks _quite literally_ before he could walk.  It was not a sufficient challenge to deter him.

He was removing the lock itself when Rogers reappeared in the maw of the jet.  “Stark?” he called, before getting a good look at where Tony was.  “What in the hell do you think you’re doing?!”

Tony smiled tightly.  “Going home,” he said, and flung open the door of the locker.  He glanced away from the Captain for a second—only a second!—but it proved to be enough to serve as a critical mistake, and just before his hand had closed on the gem-like device, Rogers had shoved him away from the locker, putting his back to it and standing as a barrier between him and it.

“Don’t do this, Captain,” Tony warned.  

“I’m pretty sure that’s what I should be saying to you,” Rogers retorted.  “It’s too dangerous!”

“I’m pretty sure I can take it.”  If it had been his Captain Rogers—or, not _his,_ but... the one from his universe, anyway—then Tony wouldn’t have been so sarcastic.  But on the other hand, if it had been _his_ Captain Rogers—or, rather...  Oh, to hell with it—then Tony was also pretty sure he wouldn’t have to explain why it was so damned important that he _get back to defeating the damned Nazis!_  

Stuffy-Replacement-Rogers shook his head.  “No.”  He said it as if his word were the final one on the subject, an attitude Tony had never responded well to.  “We’ll find another way.”

Tony smiled again, no more genuinely than he had the last time, and waited until Rogers had nodded and turned around to close the locker.

Then Tony kicked him in the back of the knee, knocking it out from under him and causing him to tumble to the ground.  He closed fast, kicking Rogers hard in the gut—Rogers’ breath rushed out in a pained, “Oof!” that would have left Tony feeling guilty if it had been Real Rogers, instead of Stuffy-Replacement-Rogers—and reached over him for the device.

He didn’t quite manage to grasp it; Rogers grabbed Tony’s own leg and lifted, a difficult move from his position, but then, Tony should have remembered just how damned strong and fast he could be.  Tony fell, off-balance just as Rogers had been from Tony’s kick, and the two rolled across the floor of the jet, away from the locker, ending with Rogers on top.

Rogers glared, pinning Tony’s hands with an iron grip around each of his wrists.  “I _told_ you _not to do this,”_ he growled.

“And I didn’t listen.  Shocking, isn’t it?”

Tony squirmed a knee between Rogers’ thighs, twisted his hips, and thrust, tossing Rogers to the side enough that he had to release his hold on one of Tony’s arms.  Then Tony brought the now-free arm across his body, stomping the bony point of the elbow into Rogers’ own wrist until he let go, then scrambled up and made it to the locker just ahead of Rogers.

This time, the Captain wasn’t quite fast enough to stop his hand from closing on the device.

Tony smiled triumphantly, only for the world to dissolve into angry, burning redness, and pain.

 

* * *

 

 There was a lot of shouting.

It was rather less important at the moment than the even greater amount of _pain._ It was _awful,_ splitting his brain like an axe, and he gave a high-pitched whine through his nose before rolling over and vomiting, bile burning his throat and splashing onto his fingers.  

“Oh good.  CAP, HE’S AWAKE!”  

Tony groaned, swallowing down another burning surge as the pain in his head swelled at the noise.  “Shhhh,” he whimpered.  God, that was a mistake.  An _enormous_ mistake, just diving for the device like that.  What had he been thinking?  He knew the answer, though:  He hadn’t been.   _Too damned hasty, and once again I do nothing but get myself into trouble..._ “Hurrrrts,” he whined.

“Yeah, I’ll bet.  Gosh, if only someone had warned you about that!”

He cracked an eyelid for a second as he wiped off his hand, and saw that Rogers had come up next to the archer—what was his name again?  Tony struggled for it, but, in the face of the pain, couldn’t match the face to the name and couldn’t be bothered to put in the effort trying.  “You know,” he told Rogers, “For a moment there, you almost sounded like the Rogers I know, instead of a self-righteous prick.”

“Oh, glad to hear it.”

Yeah, that sarcasm wasn’t going away _any_ time soon.

“What happened?”

There was a pause, an audible biting of the tongue that almost would have had Tony cracking an eyelid again, if he didn’t remember in time that _light meant more pain._

Still.

Appreciated.

“It appears that you had an adverse reaction to your attempt at utilizing the device.”

“GAH!”  That was the archer, shouting in surprise.  Tony moaned again, curling his hands around his head protectively as the archer complained, _“Damn it, Vision!  Don’t_ do _that!”_

“I entered, as counseled, through the door.”  Vision’s voice sounded hurt.

“The door _behind_ us,” Rogers sighed.  “You float, Viz.  If you’re going to enter that way, put your feet down, okay?”

There came a wet sound, as if the android had opened his mouth to object _—was_ his mouth wet?  Tony wondered, and then forced himself to _stop_ wondering—and then decided against it.

“Speaking of people sneaking up on otherwise reasonably competent Avengers, Cap...”

“He was quick,” Rogers admitted.  His voice had pulled away, as if he were directing it towards someone on the other side of him from Tony.  “A lot faster than I would have guessed, actually.  Definitely faster than _our_ Tony would have been—speaking as the guy who tried for two years to corral Tony into sparring with him.”

It was probably the pain that made Tony growl, almost too quiet to hear—but not quite, and anyway it was only almost too quiet for a _normal_ person to hear—“What does your Tony even _do_ all day, anyway?”  

Probably not a fair criticism—their Stark was doubtlessly amazing and industrious in his own sphere—but, hurting in pride and body, he really didn’t have the wherewithal to keep the snark inside.  The Vision and the archer—what was his _name?—_ both made abortive protests, but the one Tony _really_ wasn’t anticipating was Rogers’ response.

“Tony Stark,” he snapped defensively, “is one of the most amazing human beings I’ve ever met.  He is _Iron Man,_ he is an _industrialist,_ he’s started a philanthropic organization dedicated to developing young talent in the sciences, he is _kind,_ he is _big hearted,_ he is _good to small children_ even though he is _bad with animals,_ and our Tony Stark is probably worth _ten_ of anyone else, and he _definitely_ wouldn’t have pulled a _stupid-ass stunt like this!”_

Unlike The Vision, Rogers _did_ make a significant amount of noise going down the steps.

“Wow,” said the archer—Clint!  He had said his name was Clint!   _Jesus_ that took too long to remember—after Captain Rogers had left.

“Hum,” said the android; he pronounced it oddly, as if he wouldn’t have said it, except that it was what he believed people should say to indicate thoughtfulness.  “My analysis of Mr. Stark’s behavior indicates that he would, in fact, have proceeded in a manner very similar to this Alternate, although perhaps with the addition of slightly more analysis prior to the attempt.”

“So... not _as_ recklessly?”

“Indeed, Clint.”

Tony sighed and nestled his pounding head further into his hands.

 

* * *

 

Tony heard them all walk away—they took the precaution of retrieving the device before going, unfortunately, not that he was awake and alert enough to have used it, even if they hadn’t—but didn’t get up.  He had had migraines before, usually as the result of a week-long productivity binge, and he knew from experience that movement would only make it worse, so instead, he very prudently stayed still, lying on the ramp of the jet where they had left him, whimpering softly in his pain and with an arm thrown over his eyes to block out the light.

Honestly, the jet’s floor was surprisingly comfortable, all things considered.

He couldn’t possibly have anticipated the consequences of this inactivity, but if he had, he supposed he might still have done it.  Not-Rhodey had been called away—apparently, much to Tony’s delight when he had heard, this Rhodes was actually a _Colonel_ in the Air Force, as well as the pilot of the war machine armor—and The Vision had been gently encouraged not to touch people, as would be explained to Tony later.

Which meant that there was only one person left available to bring Tony into the facility.

Tony didn’t look up when footsteps approached over the tarmac; his head hurt too damned much, for one thing.  The person—whoever it was—paused at the base of the ramp, presumably contemplating Tony’s limp and miserable form.  

An exasperated breath huffed out of oversized lungs.  “A million billion alternate realities,” said Captain Rogers, his voice gone soft, all wry humor and fondness, “and you’re probably a pain in the ass in all of them.”

Tony didn’t move.  He kept his breathing steady and slow; he kept his arm in position; he didn’t tense his back muscles or his legs or any of the other places that wanted to go alert and ready in the wake of this.  He only _barely_ turned his head into Rogers’ massive, pillowy chest as the Captain cradled him against himself, lifting him to carry him into the house.  

He could only hope that the Captain couldn’t detect how fast his heart was pounding after those words.  One little sentence, one grumpy little aside, and this alternate Captain Rogers had revealed two important things:

One, he thought Tony was asleep.

And two, he was deeply, passionately, _head over heels_ in love with this universe’s Tony Stark.

 

* * *

 

Apparently, wherever the headquarters was that these Avengers had taken him to, it included a fully stocked infirmary.  Tony found himself placed in a surprisingly comfortable bed, which was then raised so that he was propped up as if sitting under his own power.  He wasn’t _feigning_ sleep, precisely, but he certainly wasn’t going to any extreme lengths to let anybody know he was awake.  It was only when the nurse made noises about cutting off his clothes that he roused enough to change into the pajama-like “scrubs” they offered him, and even then he was still out of it enough that he almost didn’t notice the Captain hurriedly stepping back and drawing the privacy curtain around him.  

In general, though, Tony found himself well taken care of by these strange, futuristic folk.  He wasn’t so exhausted that he wasn’t aware of being drugged, but it was nothing serious, just some morphine, unless he missed his guess.  Hardly sinister.  In fact, he was in enough pain, wincing and flinching at even such simple tasks as pupil response, that it was a kindness.  

He _did_ hear the nurse mention that she was using “our Tony’s” medical file as a reference and he found himself hoping that their doctors reacted calmly to the realization of the repulsor pump.  His last thought, as he dropped into a deep and painless sleep, was to wonder if the pump—and the low, baseline electricity constantly coursing through his body as a result of it—might have been enough to disrupt his attempt to use the device...  

 

**CHAPTER 3**

 

He woke up several hours later, judging by the clock across the room and the change from natural to artificial light.  The new lights were bright and blue-tinged, and Tony rather imagined that they made everything look quite ghastly.  

A look around the room showed no observers, but there was a pile of clothing—his own, but it had now been laundered—and a note.  

He picked up the note.

> _Other Tony—_  
> 
> _Dr. Cho says that there’s nothing wrong with your brain scans, but that if you still have a migraine, you’re welcome to take the pills in the little plastic cup next to this note.  Our Tony doesn’t have any adverse side effects to them._
> 
> _Your heart machine appears to be functioning normally, from what she could tell.  She said it looks like it takes a charge, but that the connector looks to be a simple jumper cable, or equivalent; we have one ready for you in the kitchen if you need it, as well as dinner, which is probably pizza because it’s Clint’s turn to pick._
> 
> _You’ll find the kitchen on the same floor as your current location.  Turn left out of your door, down the hall for three doors; on the fourth door to your right, go through and to the left again.  It will curve around, and you’ll take the last door at the very end of the hall._
> 
> _Having ever met any version of you (in any universe), I will ensure that there is coffee._
> 
> _Regards,_
> 
> _Captain Rogers_

...Well, Tony decided, if the man was making him coffee, he must not have too many hard feelings about Tony sucker-punching him.

 

* * *

 

He did indeed find the kitchen with Captain Rogers’ more-than-adequately-specific directions. The door at the end of the last hallway opened onto the rear of a sort conference-cum-dining area, a very technical-looking place with chrome and stone everywhere.  “Good heavens, is this a kitchen or a top-secret intelligence facility?” he asked, coming into the large open space between the table and the sink.

“Yes,” said Rogers, turning away from the dishes he was loading into what Tony was surprised to recognize as a dishwashing machine.  There were a lot of dishes, he noted, and no one around to have dirtied them.

“Did I miss the crowd?”

“Slept right through it,” Rogers confirmed casually.  He nodded at the rectangular box on the counter, where a display read 20:17.  “It’s a bit late for dinner.  You’re probably hungry, though.”

“Mmm.  And someone promised me coffee.”

He didn’t miss the smile that tucked into Rogers’ cheek as he turned away and poured a cup of fresh brew.  

“How’s your head?” he asked.

“Hurts.  I didn’t take any more of the pills; they make me woozy and I’d like my wits about me when I examine the device.”  

“Uh-huh.”  Rogers didn’t sound surprised.  “And how’s your heart?” He asked as he turned around with the cup, stretching his arm out to pass it over.  He jerked his head towards the other side of the room; what appeared to be a hand-held car battery with crocodile clips sat ready for Tony on the counter there.

“It’s adequate for now,” Tony said confidently, “but I’ll be sure to charge it before heading out.”

He took the coffee and went to stand beside Rogers on the other side of the dishwashing machine.  Rogers, Tony noted, was still as broad and strong as ever, filling out his denim trousers and patterned undershirt astonishingly well—which was beginning to be just a little incredible, actually.  “What’s the half-life on that stuff, anyway?”

Rogers glanced up from a plate as he fits it between the slots of the machine.  “On what stuff?” he asked, looking back down at the dishes.

 _“Your_ stuff.  The Serum.”

Rogers straightened.  “I’m sorry?”

“How long does it take to wear off?  Because my guy would’ve been on his second or third dose right now, but I can’t see you taking it just for dinner even with my presence taken into account, so—”

“I’m sorry,” Rogers interrupted, “You think the Serum _wears off?”_

The kitchen went still and silent, the two men staring at each other.

“I’ve _seen_ the Serum wear off,” Tony said eventually.  “Yours...  doesn’t?”

Rogers stared at him for a moment longer.  “Hasn’t so far,” he said finally, bending again to put the dishes in the machine.

Tony processed that.

“How?” he asked eventually, figuring Rogers would tell him or not; if it was classified still, then that was just the way the mop flopped.  “Erskine was good, but I don’t know how he could have found way to set the changes deep into your DNA.”

Rogers shrugged, and when he spoke, his voice came out a little breathless from being bent at the waist (a sight Tony was trying not to appreciate too obviously).  “Well,” he said, “your father helped.”

Tony nodded, and then froze, his hand clenched hard around the coffee mug so that his fingers ached.  “My father,” he repeated, mind whirling.  Was his father still Zemo in this reality?  Was Zemo part of the team for Rebirth, here?  Or was his father not Zemo at all, and this Steve was just much luckier than Tony had ever been?  

Out loud, he asked, “Before he...?”

“Before he died, yeah,” Rogers answered, looking over.  “I’m sorry; I thought, since you seem to be from an earlier time...”

“You thought mine might still be alive,” Tony summarized.  

Rogers nodded.

“Well.”  Tony smiled, tight and angry at the damned truth of it, “he isn’t.”

_And it’s because I killed him._

Rogers touched his shoulder.  It was just a light touch, a little thing, honestly; just reaching out his arm across the dishwasher and— _touch._ It still got Tony’s attention laser-focused on him—a relief after his frankly morbid thoughts.

“I’m sorry,” Rogers repeated.

Tony nodded.  He believed him, although Rogers didn’t seem to realize exactly why Tony was so upset.  He said it out loud, too, though, guarded and neutral: “I believe you,”

Rogers’ mouth quirked.  “Change the subject?” he suggested.  "You don't like me mentioning your dad here, either."

“Please,” Tony said gratefully.  “What do you people do for fun around here?”

He was rewarded with a soft snicker and tried to squelch the feeling of happiness that bubbled up from his depths at the sound of it.  “Oh, you know.  Save the world, watch baseball—hockey, hockey’s good, too.  Rhodey and I have a bet going about the cup this year.”

“Oh, well—that sounds interesting.”  The saving the world did, anyway; Tony found baseball incredibly dull.

“No, it doesn’t, you hate baseball,” Steve said, and Tony jerked his head up at the echoing of his own thoughts.  “Speaking of Rhodey, though, is there some reason he lit out of here like the hounds of hell were chasing him?  I tried asking him, but he didn’t want to talk about it and everyone else had already scattered.”

“I thought he said he was _called_ in, by the Air Force?”

Rogers snorted.  “He was, sure; but he’s got a twenty-two hour window for arrival.  No, he was getting out of here deliberately.”  Because sticking together in their downtime was not apparently something these "Avengers" did; this universe was _weird._

Tony shrugged.

“I can’t say for sure, of course, but it seems like a good bet that I’m just... not his Tony.  He’s...”  He remembered the unsettling jolt when he’d seen that familiar, unfamiliar face.  “You and he are the only two people here I really know, and you I’ve only known a couple months.  Rhodey is...”  He shook his head, then, as his temples throbbed, regretted it.  “...he’s my best friend.  And if I’m as uncanny to _him_ as _he_ is to _me,_ then I can hardly blame him for avoiding me.  It is decidedly eerie.”

“Hmmm...”  Steve closed the dishwasher with a click, then turned and leaned against the counter, drying his hands on a nearby towel before crossing his arms over his chest.  “Well, we should be able to find out.  Our Tony is going to be here tomorrow morning.”

“Why?”

Steve’s _—Rogers’,_ Tony reminded himself—eyebrows shot up.  “Why?” he repeated.  “Possibly because we have a—demonstrably,” he gestured at Tony, “—dangerous and unstable artifact which needs to be examined and possibly contained?”

“Hi,” Tony smiled thinly.  “My name is Tony Stark, have we met?  I’m the world’s _foremost expert_ in examining _and containing_ dangerous artifacts.”  He let his smile broaden aggressively.  “I’m actually a little bit famous for it.”

Rogers shakes his head.  “Not in this world,” he said firmly.  “In fact, the results in _this_ world the last time we let you play with a dangerous artifact were...”  He tilts his head to the side.  “...not so great.”

Tony didn’t know what that meant and it was frankly infuriating.  Still, he squashed down his temper.  “That sounds like all the more reason to let me look at it alone.”

“Yeah, that’s been going real well.  How’s your head, again?”

Tony let his smile sharpen to cover the burst of fond exasperation.  “There’s the little shit I know—”

_—and love._

Tony cut himself off just in time.  

Unfortunately, this Steve appeared to be significantly more perceptive than his own, and detected Tony’s sloppy punctuation.  His face changed, going from sassy-bland to an intensity so hot it burned, eyes blazing into Tony’s.  

In his hand, a spoon shrieked a protest as it slowly bent in half.

They both looked at it.

Then back up at each other.

Tony gulped.  

Technically, he reminded himself, he hadn’t said anything prosecutable—he wouldn’t have, even if he _had_ finished the sentence, because claiming he was just joking was obviously believable.

As the moment went on, though, stretching like saltwater taffy, it became increasingly obvious that prosecution wasn’t exactly what this Steve Rogers, at least, had in mind.

Finally, the larger man swallowed, pressing his lips together.  He looked around the room, then stepped to the counter in two long strides and grabbed the battery charger.  “Follow me,” he ordered without looking, and led the way down the main staircase.

Tony, left with a choice of either following or standing alone in a strange kitchen, followed him out.  

 

**CHAPTER 4**

 

Steve led them down the stairs, then back through the body of the complex to what Tony could only guess was his bedroom.  It was sparse; a desk with some sort of machine upon it, a chair with uncomfortable looking lines.  A bed in the corner which instantly drew Tony’s eye.

He looked back up to find Steve watching him intently.  

“So here’s the thing,” Steve said, voice low and even.  “I’m not the guy you know.”

“No.”

“And you’re not the guy I know.”

“Not that either,” Tony confirmed readily.  

“You’re much more action-oriented, more ready to strike, but you’re also less aware of modern technology.  You seem more confident in yourself—at times _too_ confident—but you also seem much more...”  

Tony smiled, thin and sharp, before stepping close into Rogers’ space.  “More _what?”_ he asked, voice challenging.

Rogers snorted at him, unimpressed.  “Yeah,” he said, “That.”

Then he grabbed Tony by the shoulders and shoved him against the wall.  

They were kissing hard, hands pulling at each other’s hair, grabbing at shirts for purchase.  Tony found the catch on Rogers’ belt and had it off in only a minute and half, hands fumbling and slow but, oh, so eager.  He slipped beneath it as soon as he had the room for his hands, reaching down to cup Steve’s perfect ass, grabbing and squeezing so that Steve moaned into his mouth.  

“Yeah?”

“Yes,” Tony assured him.  “God, yes, I’ve wanted to since the day I _met_ you!”

“Him.”

“Yes.”  Tony kissed him again, sweeping his tongue into his mouth aggressively.  “Him.  Exactly.”  

“Oh, good.”  

Steve knocked Tony’s arms aside—which he _could,_ thanks to the Serum—and dropped to his knees, pulling Tony’s belt open just as aggressively as Tony had gone after his, except that his movements much more efficient than Tony’s had been.

He sucked him in fast and hard, the way Tony was used to, quite frankly; the way you did in an alley when you were worried about getting caught.  Only they _weren’t,_ this _wasn’t_ an alley, and Steve was a goddamned _angel_ who deserved to be treated as such, but here he was on his knees _anyway—_ and the sight of his mouth wrapped around Tony was probably illegal pretty much everywhere, but good lord, it was _perfect_ how slick and shiny his lips were.  They were a little bit puffy from the friction, too, and they felt—they felt _amazing._

Tony groaned, and let his head fall back to hit the door before shoving Steve away.

“You’re very good at that,” he told him, panting.  He ran his fingers through Steve’s hair, and Steve looked up at him with, his eyes glowing with something cracked inside, the sort of look you get when you’ve pushed something down, and pushed it down, and suddenly it wants to break free.  His mouth was swollen and obscenely pink.  “You’re very good.  But I have _ideas_ about how I want this to go, and it’s a little more complicated than just you using your magnificent mouth on me.” He jerked his head towards the corner of the room.  “That is a lovely bed you have there, for one thing.”

Steve looked away, then pulled back, nodding.  “Fine, then.”  He raised an eyebrow, probably unaware that he was even doing so; it just seemed to be second nature to him to come back at Tony with a challenge, no matter what he said.  Tony wondered about it with one of those little spectator portions of his mind; it was both very like _and_ very unlike the Steve that Tony knew.  “Let’s do it.”

There was this to be said for Steve:  he was apparently able to simply lift Tony up and carry him across the room under his arm.  

“That is _absurd,”_ Tony informed him.  “I love it, of course, but it _is_ ridiculous.”

“Yeah,” Steve said, “I bet you’re having a real hard time staying interested, because of that.”

“Your sass is noted,” Tony said.  Then he took hold of Steve’s cock, jacking it hard and fast.  “And appreciated.  Can you go more than once?  I’ve always wondered how many times I could get you—my you—off before the Serum ran out.  Care to share some data?”

Steve grunted, his eyes slipping closed.  “Not sure... how accurate I’d be...”

“Well, it’s a jumping-off point.  Gets me pointed in the right direction, as it were; leaves it to me to find my way to the sacred cave.”  

Steve caught his hand and brought it to his mouth, giving it a good solid lick or two, sucking on the fingers apparently just for fun.  _Second time,_ Tony noted; _oral fetish?_  “You got a lot of sacred caves in your life?” Steve asked.

Tony couldn’t resist a line like that, and he wasn’t even going to try.  “I’d like to have one more,” he said, raising his eyebrows significantly.  

“Really?”  Steve raised his right back.  “And here I’d always had you pegged for a power bottom.”

It wasn’t a phrase they used where Tony came from and he wondered if this Steve had learned it in the future or if it had always been around in this world, but either way, the implications were obvious. He felt his pulse speed up as the mental images poured in.  “Yes,” he said, not pretending even for a moment at reluctance.  “Do you have oil of some kind?”

Steve quirked a smile.  “A very good kind.  Did you know they publish _comparative reviews_ of these things, now?”

“Good lord.  Seriously?”

Steve rummaged around in the nightstand, and tossed Tony a bottle for his inspection.  To Tony’s delight, in addition to the name of the product, it also had the ingredients listed on the back.  Simple enough stuff, and he made a mental note to ensure that his company was manufacturing something similar.  It was a nice, subtle niche market which would easily withstand the vagaries of the stock market, _and_ it would provide an excuse to have samples of the stuff on hand.

And speaking of “on hand”...

He poured the slick liquid over his fingers—there was almost no scent, to his surprise—and then wrapped them again around Steve’s length.  “Come on,” he said, “I know you can go at _least_ twice—”

“Oh, at _least.”_

“—and I want you feeling patient when you go entering my cave.”

Steve snickered.  

“Sure,” he agreed, “have—”  He broke off to blow all his air out in one puff, then filled his lungs and started talking again.  “Oh, nice—have fun, do whatever you want.”  

Tony grinned, a feral sort of smile that would have sent Rhodey groaning and Pepper complaining if either one of them had seen it, and set to work.

Here was a thing Tony liked to pride himself on:  he was very, _very_ good with his hands.

Steve Rogers was already incredibly good looking, but there was something very satisfying about mussing him up.  As Tony jerked him, twisting and tugging in one smooth motion, keeping the pressure firm but not tight, Rogers seemed almost to slump, relaxing into it, deliberately letting go as he idly pulled the rest of his clothes off around Tony’s working hand.  It shouldn’t have been so lovely, but it was; Tony could almost see the tension draining out of the man’s shoulders, could watch his posture ease until he looked like a normal, incredibly muscular, smooth-skinned, well-hung, powerful man.  

Tony felt the fire kick up under his sternum, flickering little flames of desire that spread rapidly downward and then out through all of his limbs.  

 _Yes,_ he thought, watching Rogers turn human.   _Yessss..._

He reached for the lube with his relatively-clean other hand.  “Is this stuff ingestible?” he asked.

“Yep.  ‘Swhy—that’s why I bought that kind.”  Steve was breathing hard, now, in the sort of short puffs that come when one is very aroused but not moving much.

Tony hmm’ed happily, then went to his own knees and dropped his mouth over the head of Steve’s penis.  It made it a little easier to jack him, just working the base in his fist, using his mouth to keep pressure and suction on the head and that sensitive patch of skin at the base of it.  

After a moment, Steve responded with a rough cry, and warned, “I’m close.”    

Tony pulled off.  “Good,” he said, before dropping his mouth back in place.

Rogers twisted his upper body, one arm reaching out to smack into the wall.  It sounded a resounding _clang!,_ almost like a gong, and Tony flinched in surprise before he realized that it was a steel reinforcement.  

The mental image of Steve punching hole after hole in his bedroom wall had Tony snickering as he sucked the last of the jism out of him.

“Fuck,” Steve muttered, dropping down to finally sit on the bed.  “Holy hell, you don’t fuck around, do you?”

Tony raised his eyebrows, sitting back on his heels.  “Language,” he commented mildly.

He wasn’t expecting Rogers to throw his head back and guffaw.

 

* * *

 

They made out for a couple of minutes after that.  It was good; very peaceful, languidly sucking on each other’s tongues.

Then Steve pulled back.  “Alright, alright, I have bones again,” he said.  He slid his hand down Tony’s back until he had a full handful of asscheek, and squeezed.  “Come on, turn around, let me play with this.”

“Mmm,” Tony said, neither agreeing nor refusing.  “How about I turn around and let you and your magic potion help _me_ play with it, instead?”

“That works, too,” Rogers said, finally agreeable now that he was fucked into relaxation.  “I’d love to see you—”  He cut himself off.  “Here, just—”

 _“Just”_ meant _“just let me lick it for a while,”_ apparently, because that was what Rogers proceeded to do, dropping his mouth to Tony’s hole and going to town, strong tongue running around the rim, over it, darting at the hole and then licking broad-side over it again.  Tony tried not to go too crazy, but Rogers was persistent, and when Tony realized he was letting out chesty little moans, he pulled away.

“Alright, alright— where did the damned oil go?”

“Language,” Rogers snickered back at him, before throwing the bottle at his head.

Tony caught it and slicked his fingers again, sinking his long middle finger into himself.  

“Oh,” Steve said, and it was a different tone, now, a new tone, one which Tony unabashedly loved:  the tone of someone who was surprised by how very turned on they were.  “Oh, you’re perfect.”  

“I’m not, actually.  But I _am_ very good at this.”  

He pulled out, and came back with two fingers this time, bending them just a bit and twisting, then squeezing a bit more lube from the bottle to run down his own crack.  

“That should do it,” he said.  “Come on.”

He met Steve’s eyes challengingly.

“Are you sure?” Steve asked.  “I don’t want to hurt you; I’m not exactly tiny.”

“Trust me, I noticed.  In fact, I’m looking forward to it.  Now _come on.”_

Steve arranged himself at the edge of the bed, knees slightly spread, feet flat on the floor, then gestured invitingly for Tony to get over his lap.  Which Tony did, post haste, taking him in hand to get the angle right, then sinking down and letting gravity do most of the work of entry.

He shouted out when he got the head in, a triumphant, full-throated yell; he sank down slowly and watched Steve tilt his head back in bliss.  That revealed a long, delicious chunk of neck-based territory, which he proceeded to lick and bite until brilliant red bruises bloomed all along it; they would, Tony knew, fade away soon enough.  

Steve gave him a minute to adjust, letting him feel the delicious fullness of him.  

And god, there was a _lot_ of him!  Tony felt his eyes crossing, and braced his hands on Steve’s shoulders for balance.  When he moved, he started slow, more of a rocking back and forth then anything else, but eventually he picked up the speed, encouraged in part by Steve’s arms wrapping around him, rubbing and caressing the full length of his body, bit by bit, piece by piece.  Then Steve started lifting with his left arm, urging him to move faster and faster, while the other hand came around, brushing up against Tony at the place where they joined, rubbing at the tight-stretched skin there.  It was too much, overstimulation, and Tony found himself making _appalling_ noises as a result:  wordless, broken, _deep-fucked_ noises.  

He felt Rogers smile in triumph against the skin of his throat.

It would have felt good anyway _—of course!—_ but there was something especially satisfying in riding him, something deep and primal and _claiming_ about being the one moving, the one in control—such as it was—of their intercourse.  Tony felt high, felt like he was flying, felt like it did when he was wearing the suit and he smashed through a set of thick wooden doors.  Rogers’ hands were around his waist and he was helping move him but he wasn’t setting the pace; that was Tony, all Tony, and it felt _glorious._

The burn was starting in his thighs, though, starting to spread upward through the long muscles _—the quadriceps,_ his too-active brain noted, _the glutes, the hamstrings, the tiny gracilis—_ and Rogers _wasn’t flagging,_ wasn’t tiring, _of course he wasn’t,_ and oh, God, Tony couldn’t go forever, but damn if he was willing to admit defeat.  Instead, he sped up a little, urging his tiring body on, moving and moving but it wasn’t enough.  It wasn’t _going_ to be enough, and he could see it, see the moment coming when he gave up.  “Dear God,” he gasped, rising and falling as Steve’s burning mouth moved across his chest, mouthing around the housing of the pump, “you’re going to break me.”  And then, after crying out at a particularly sharp thrust:  “Come on, Steve.  Come for me.”  He started crying it out with every shove of his hips, turning his wordless cries into an instruction:  “Come on!  Come on!  Come on!”

Rogers must have been deep into it, because it took him a minute to understand the words, to process them, to respond.  He lifted his chin and put his chin above Tony’s shoulder, holding his jerking head still with a hand tight in Tony’s hair.  He turned his face to speak directly into his ear:

“No,” he said, voice low and dark.

Tony tightened and squeezed, and got an involuntary jerk of Rogers’ hips in response, but the hand in his hair didn’t loosen.  “No, Tony.  I always—I mean, I want you to _ask_ for it.”  Tony tightened again, sank down.  Then rose up as Rogers said, “I want you to beg.”

Oh, that was a _dare._

“No,” Tony said, rising to the challenge and all the way up.  “No, come on.”  Didn’t sink back down.  “Come for me like this.”  Didn’t sink back down.  “You can do it.”   _Didn’t sink back down,_ but God, this was _killing_ him!

Rogers pulled back to look him up and down before guiding their mouths together for a bruising, biting kiss.  “Could,” he said when pulled back again.  “Don’t want to.”  

Tony’s eyes narrowed, and he shoved all the way down, taking Rogers in hard and fast to the root, but the brutal pace he set couldn’t last, and the attempt was destined for failure.  He was already tired, muscles burning, already winded, and he could keep it up.  A minute later, he paused again, resting, deep-seated, in Rogers’ lap.

“My turn?”  Rogers ran his fingernails down Tony’s back, hard enough to raise lightly-stinging welts.  “Come on, Tony.  I always— I want to take you.  Take _care of_ you.  Let me.”

Tony thought about trying again—his pride _screamed_ at him to try again, to make another pass—but...

...No.  Even he had to know when to give up, eventually.  He let his head fall back on his neck.  “Yes,” he said.  “Your turn.  Damn you, anyway.  Do it.”

“You sure?”  Rogers was openly smiling, now, and his teeth had found Tony’s earlobe, and were doing things to it that made his eyes cross.

 _“Yes,”_ he blurted, then shuddered as Rogers bit down gently.

“Ask nicely,” Rogers purred.

 _I want you to beg,_ he had said.

_Oh god._

Tony whimpered.

“Steve.  _Steven.”_  He rose up again, then sank down as far as he could, _grinding_ into him.  “Rogers.”  He pulled back, then sank his left hand into Steve’s too-short hair, his right cupping his chin so that Tony was forcing him to meet his eyes.  “Fuck me, Steve, _please!”_ he snarled, and Steve’s eyes glowed.   

His enormous arms pressed Tony in tightly against his chest, his mouth covering Tony’s.  Then he lifted one of the legs on which Tony was sitting, braced for a second, and _launched them both into the air,_ spinning like an inordinately attractive dreidel and coming down on top of Tony, who hurriedly pulled his knees up to give Steve more room to maneuver.

Which he did.

Very hard.

And very fast.

Tony didn’t even _realize_ he was shouting until Steve pulled back and covered his mouth with his hand, and if Steve _hadn’t,_ he probably wouldn’t have been able to stop.  Muffled cries poured out of him with every thrust—and what thrusts they _were,_ dear god Tony could feel them in his _throat—_ shouts that came faster and faster, closer and closer together.  Tony reached down and started stroking himself, sensing the end approaching, and _god—_ Steve just kept going, and going, and _going—_

“Let go,” Steve gritted out in his ear.  “I’m damned close, come on, I’ve waited _too fucking long_ for this, just go over already, _do it,_ Tony—”

Tony sped his hand, his legs shifting down to clamp around Steve’s hips, tightening, tensing, as he spun closer and closer to the edge—

—and went over.

It felt like a very long fall, stars and whistles exploding around him as he went.

When he finally came back to an awareness of his surroundings, Steve had stopped, ground to a halt with every last inch of his cock inside Tony, and was shuddering all over above Tony as he came, and came, and came.  

Tony moaned in happy delirium.

Rogers chuckled.  “Yeah,” he agreed.  “I’ll say.”

 

* * *

 

Rogers didn’t particularly seem like a cuddler, but Tony was, and he was willing to use Rogers’ guilt over just exactly how hard he’d been going to convince him to stay for a while.  

“Not too hard, though, right?”

“God no, it was perfect—but, I mean, I do like to take a while before trying to _move_ after a railroading like that.”

Rogers huffed, tried and failed to look grumpy, and settled in.

Tony would have killed for a cigarette just then, but none seemed to be on offer.  He remembered that the Steve of his world had been asthmatic, and wondered if the multiversal Rogerses had just never picked up the habit.  Still, he filled his lungs as deeply as he could given the pump in his chest and breathed out in a steady stream of air, thinking about the number of times Steve had said _always_ that evening.  

“So,” he asked, “how long have you been in love with your Tony?”

Rogers groaned, and let his head plop into the mattress face-first; a completely ineffective way of avoiding the question.  Tony poked him with one finger, then rubbed at his chest.  He would need to charge the repulsor pump, before long.

“You can’t tell him,” Rogers said.  He sounded miserable, which was not exactly how Tony like his lovers to sound post-coitally.

“I haven’t even _met_ him,” he pointed out, mostly to reassure Rogers.  “And to all appearances, he seems to be avoiding me.”

Rogers raised his head far enough to peer at Tony with one long-lashed eye.  

“Well, what else would you call it?  And don’t pretend he’s too far away, the rest of you seem to be able to hop around the globe quickly enough.”  His fingers twitched.  No cigarette, and now nothing to write his ideas down in; he was going to go stir crazy in about three minutes, at this rate.

Rogers shifted his weight from one hip to the other—an intriguing maneuver, since the man was already sprawled face-down on top of Tony.  If Tony weren’t far to exhausted to go for it, he would have been interested.  “We actually asked him not to come up, at first,” Steve admitted.  “We thought it would be too confusing to have two of you.  It was only your...”  Tony watched him deliberately bite back adjectives.  “...attempt to re-use the device that convinced us to call him in.”

“Oh,” said Tony.  There were muscles shifting under Rogers’ skin, and it did seem a shame that the man would be tensing up, given how much effort they’d just put into knocking his tension out.  “You didn’t have to, you know.  I could get it; I’m supposedly very clever.”

“I know.”  Rogers let his head fall again, this time so that it landed with his open mouth on Tony’s shouldercap.  He gummed at the skin meditatively, then added, “There’s no telling how long it would take you, though, and there have been considerable tech advancements since our time.  It’s faster to call him in.”  He bit the spot he’d just been mouthing, then licked it, once, like a cat.  “More prudent.”

“Mmmf.”  Tony wrapped his fingers around Rogers’ neck, digging the tips of them into the muscles there.  Rogers slumped even further than he had been, relaxing into it.

“So,” he asked Tony, sounding drugged, “how long have _you_ been in love with _your_ Steve?”

Tony tensed but it couldn’t really build up any steam.  He was too well-fucked, too _in a good place,_ for it to bother him.  “I don’t know.  I’m not even sure that’s what it is.  He’s just...”

How to explain?

How to explain the way Steve made Tony feel not-tired, for once?

How to explain the way working with Steve felt _different_ from working for _Marvels,_ that it felt like it _mattered,_ for once?

How to explain that Tony, a man with a long sexual history and the ability—no arrogance intended—to get with pretty much any person he could point a finger at, a man who could, and had, convinced a three-star general to have a quickie, in the White House, during a press gathering—that _Tony_ found himself bashful and tongue-tied in the presence of Steve’s luminous, fundamental _goodness?_

It wasn’t _all_ about his ass.

Although that was spectacular, too...

“...well, if it’s not love, it’s something new, anyway.”  Tony tapped his fingers on the glass cage of the pump.  “I do spend an awful lot of my life looking for new things.”

Rogers breathed, steady and deep, against his shoulder.  He didn’t respond but Tony knew he was listening; his heart was pounding too fast, too loud, for sleep.

“I suppose... well.  There’s really only one way to find out, isn’t there?”  Tony tapped the pump-housing one more time and then went still.  “And it’s too big a risk without _some_ sign of welcome, so the odds are, I never will know.”

“Yeah,” Rogers agreed.  His eyes were far, far away.  

Then they snapped back to focus on Tony’s face.  “You know how we didn’t get along, at first?” he asked.

Tony nodded, cautiously.

“Well, multiply that by five and you’ll have me and my Tony.  We fight more often than we agree, I think.”

“And, yet, the affection in the relationship is unmistakable, even to a newcomer who’s only seen half the dynamic,” Tony pointed out.

“Yeah.  We’re friends,” Steve said sardonically.  “But since I’m pretty sure he can’t stand me _in spite of that,_ I’m pretty much never gonna put the moves on him.”

“Seems a shame,” Tony said, itching for that cigarette, “your moves are pretty extraordinary.”

Rogers laughed, then got up and started picking up clothes off the floor.  “Come on,” he said, “Get up and get to bed.  You’re going to meet yourself coming and going tomorrow, it’s going to be a big day.”

  

**CHAPTER 5**

 

The first thing Tony thought when he met his double was, _Thank goodness they provided me with pants._ Not that they _wouldn’t_ have provided him with pants; in fact, these people were being very considerate of his needs.  But he had the option of a) the clothes he was wearing the day before, b) the pajama-like hospital clothes, or c) new trousers in his own size which he found, neatly folded, at the base of his bed this morning.  The third option was obviously preferable.  

Greeting his double while wearing dirty clothes would have put him at a distinct disadvantage.  

There was still, however, a disconnect between the styles of their clothes.  Local Tony was dressed properly, or mostly, anyway, in trousers, a pearly dress shirt, and a gray waistcoat.  A glance around the kitchen-area was enough to locate his tie, tumbled carelessly on the conference table.  His hair was in disarray, but short enough that it was relatively unnoticeable; his shoes were pointed and black.  

He looked tired.

Tony himself, by contrast, was wearing the borrowed work-trousers and a printed undershirt of the type seemingly prefered for everyday outerwear in this universe; even the young lady sitting at the conference table, spectacularly failing to be absorbed in her book, was wearing one.  He had shoes, but they were tennis shoes; very comfortable but hardly fashionable.  

In short, he felt distinctly underdressed.

He would have expected Local Tony not to comment on it, but the first thing out of the other’s mouth was, “God, you look so much more comfortable than I am.  Can we trade?”

“Gladly,” Tony said stiffly.  

“Oof.  Well, there’s _some_ kind of a story there.  Have you eaten?  Smoothie?  Blueberry?  Muesli?”

“Muesli, please.  I apologize for any inconvenience.”

“No trouble.”  Local Tony waved a spoon, lying through his teeth.  “I like to take care of any little problems our friends face here—”

Well, _that_ part was true.

“ — and besides, this promises to be interesting.  You know, we both have goatees, so which one of us is the Evil Tony?”

What on earth did goatees have to do with it?

“Possibly the clean-shaven one neither of us has met,” Tony guessed.  “Are those bananas?”

“Yes—”

“No.”  Captain Rogers had entered from the main staircase on the other side.

“Ignore Steve, he’s still bitter about the varietals.  Now, the reports say you found the device in some kind of storage?”

“A bit.  More like a curio cabinet, but that was in my world; in this one, it was destroyed, and there was no such device present.  It appears to activate upon touch by skin—Rogers here put it back in storage with gloved hands with no ill-effects, thank goodness—and when it activates, it does so with a display of light.  Pink the first time, red the second.”

“The second one, that’s when it laid you out flat with a migraine?  Which, by the way, I didn’t know I could _get_ migraines.”

The bananas were fine.  

Local Him was watching him carefully for a response.  

Tony chewed and swallowed.  “I only get them when I find myself _quite_ exhausted.  Or, of course, it could be one of the differences between us.”  

“Uh-huh.  How’s your chest?”

“It’s fine,” Tony dismissed.  It actually was, too; he had charged it before leaving his room this morning.

“Pink the first time?  And red during the failure?”

“I do believe that’s what I said.”  He spooned muesli up aggressively.

“There’s nothing pink on that device, though, right?   _Or_ red.”

“You know, I actually noticed that.”

Local Him snickered.

“Right.  Let’s go down to the lab, shall we?  Bring your breakfast.  You’re gonna love this; it’s like the _cave of wonders.”_

He shouldn’t have done it.  He _really_ shouldn’t have done it.  It was absolutely childish, for one thing, and for another...  well, for another, it was a bit of a churlish way to repay what had been quite a lovely experience.  

He really couldn’t resist, though, given the _cave of wonders_ crack.  

Tony turned to make eye contact with Rogers and raised his eyebrows—just a little, just a bit, just enough for Rogers to notice and Local Him to miss it.  “Well,” he said, “I do love a good magical cave.”

And he should have seen it coming, because it was exactly what _his_ Steve would have done, but it still gave him a bit of a thrill when Rogers hid a smirk behind the rim of his coffee cup and, deliberately, slurped.

 

* * *

 

Tony would have been infuriated if he weren’t so delighted, because Local Him was exactly right:  the lab was _exactly_ like a cave of wonders.  

Tony had managed to miss that this place had an actual _artificial intelligence,_ for one thing, although he didn’t have a _clue_ how that had happened.  He would have been embarrassed about the little jump he gave when she came on, except that _dear God there was an artificial intelligence!_

And a very polite one, too.  

_(Tony flirted with her extravagantly, which seemed only to amuse his alternate self._

_“Oh, heavens,” she responded with just enough dryness to edge over into the realm of the sarcastic.  “And here I didn’t think I was your type.”_

_Tony remembered that she probably had cameras in the kitchen, if not in Rogers’ quarters, and felt obscurely threatened._

_“I’m sure you’re lovely,” he said, and then dropped the subject completely.)_  

He very soon was forced—ever so grudgingly—to admit that Rogers had been _right,_ damn his eyes:  There was a hell of a lot that Tony just didn’t know about the technology here.  

It was immensely frustrating, and he quickly found himself becoming snappish, even going so far as to duck out of the workshop onto the small patio outside it, wishing fervently for a cigarette, trying not to sulk.  He crossed his arms and stomped his feet as if he were cold, although the drizzly spring morning was, at best, merely chilly.  

The door opened behind him, and his counterpart came out, passing him a gyroscope and a cup of coffee before sprawling in one of the deck chairs.  They watched, together, as the purple android—The Vision, he was called, Tony remembered—floated in and out of the woods at the edge of the lawn, silently following a family of deer with his head cocked to the side.  

Local Tony leaned back in the chair, crossing one knee over the other.  In the woods, the deer spotted The Vision and spooked.  The Vision floated gently away, rising above the treeline before returning to the compound.

“Let’s put it this way,” Local Tony said musingly, “If this were a hedge-maze, neither one of us would have a map.  I’ve done a different, much simpler hedge-maze, and I’ve read about some of the principles of design.  You’ve done regular mazes, but never even seen one made outdoors.”

It was a depressingly accurate analogy.

Of course it was; he was the man who had made it.

Except he wasn’t.

“I’m not used to that,” he admitted, voice rough.  “I’m used to being the experienced hedge-maze _designer,_ not the navigator.  This is...” he tipped his head to the side, “...uncomfortable.”

“Yeah, well.  You have other strengths.”  Local Him unfolded his legs, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees for a second before standing.  “For one thing,” he continued, “you’re much better at going after the things you want.  Come on, let’s go show you JStor.”

Then he introduced Tony to the wonders of online research databases— where had these _been_ all his life?!  He was going to have to invent them, they were too useful— and together, they spent the morning studying, scanning, researching, and altogether just _trying to understand_ the device.

 

* * *

 

“So,” Local Tony said, not looking up from the SEM viewer, “You said you came from the forties?”

“Most recently,” Tony quipped in answer, also not looking up from where he was reading about fused-quartz memory crystals.  “Why?”

“Just thinking...”  

Dangerous damned words coming from any version of himself.

“...you must have known Captain Rogers there?”

Oh, damn, what on earth was a “femtosecond laser”?  Was that a frequency notation?  “I know _a_ version of Captain Rogers.  He’s not the same as this one, of course.”

“How is he different?”

Tony thought about how to put it into words for a moment, tapping on the flat-screen reading device on his lap in thought.  “Stiffer,” he said finally, “But also more flexible.”  And he wasn’t even going to make a joke about that description, either.  “The one I know, the Serum... It doesn’t work permanently; it wears off after about three hours.  So the Captain Rogers who’s wandering about when not on a mission, he’s...”  Tony held his hands out about a foot apart, and then halved the distance between them to mime shrinking.  “...frequently underestimated.  And angry.”

“Angry?”

“Well, not unreasonably so.  It’s just that people are frequently quite dismissive.  He has rather a lot to prove.  So your Steve—” Oh, damn, here’s hoping that his counterpart didn’t notice that slip.  “—is rather more relaxed, while also being much more of a stickler for the rules.”

“Huh.”  Local Him wasn’t looking at the microscope, anymore; he was tapping his fingers on the surface of the bench in much the same way Tony himself was tapping his fingers on the data-reader.  

Then Local Tony looked up and pinned him with a sharp gaze from chocolatey-brown versions of his own eyes.   _“All_ the rules?”

Sirens began sounding in the back of Tony’s mind, because there _was_ one rule that the two of them had rather flagrantly disregarded, wasn’t there?  “Many of them, anyway.  Why?”

“Oh, nothing.  It’s just you seem pretty ambiguous, as the nineteen-forties go.  Seems like he might have a bigger problem with you, but here you are this morning, already exchanging inside jokes.”

Oh, damn.  

He _really_ should have kept his mouth shut with that cave of wonders crack.

 

**CHAPTER 6**

 

By five that afternoon, they had it:  a hypothesis that explained all the ways the gem-like device had been documented, via Tony’s experience, as working, as well as all the current information on miniaturized data storage.  Crucially, they also had a plan for convincing the device—which, Stark said, exhibited the basic elements of a _personality_ , God help them all—to take him home.  

“Can it wait half an hour?” Rogers asked, when they came to him and presented their findings.

The Tonies exchanged uncertain glances, and then Local Tony shrugged.   _Your call,_ he meant.  

Tony turned to Rogers.  “I suppose, having waited a day and half, another half hour won’t make much difference either way.  Why?”

Rogers shrugged, leaning back in his comfortable-looking desk chair and stretching his hands over his head until his shoulder cracked.  “I was hoping to have Wanda here when you did it,” he said.  “Seemed prudent.”

Tony turned to Local Him.  “Wanda?”

“Steve’s right; it is prudent.”  Local Him had wandered further into the room to gaze out the window, and now turned back and half-sat against the desk on the far side of Rogers.  “Wanda’s an enhanced individual—”  That sounded like a political term.  “—she can... manipulate reality, basically.  It’s insurance.”

“Good heavens,” Tony said blankly, “do you mean Wanda _Maximoff?_ ”

The other two both stared.

“...Wasn’t she one of your Howling Commandos?” Tony demanded of the Captain, and then watched his eyes widen.

“No...?”

Tony moved forward propped his hip against the desk on the near side of Steve, so that he mimicked the posture of the Other Tony, the two of them bracketing him like bookends.  Steve leaned back in his chair and spread his legs apart; not much, just enough to brace his feet more squarely against the floor.  

“Seems like a good plan, then; certainly, call her in.  Now...”  Tony crossed one leg over the other, enjoying the inch and a half of height he had on Local Him, feeling it all down the length of his muscular thighs.  “...what _should_ we do to fill the time?”

Steve’s eyes widened and he swallowed.  “Excuse me?” he asked.  He was also almost glaring.  

Well, reasonable; Tony would have been glaring, too, if the situations were reversed.  Nothing like having a total stranger spill your deepest secret to the last person you would ever have wanted to hear it, after all.  

But _too bad._  Tony hadn’t realized that Local Him would pick up on it when he flirted with Steve that morning, and if he had, he wouldn’t have done it.  But since he _had_ done it, and Local him _had_ figured it out, and furthermore had confronted him on the matter, it _did_ seem that the least he could do about the situation was get the two natives off to a good start.  

Towards that end, he slipped off the desk, took the step forward he needed, leaned down, and kissed Steve, long and slow and lingering, nice and deep.  Rogers sank into it for a few seconds—two, actually—before stiffening and shoving him back, his eyes darting frantically towards Local Tony, who was still braced against the table.

Local Tony’s eyes were burning, lit from within with desire and delight; his mouth was soft, and slightly open at the sight in front of him.

“Wow,” he said to Rogers.  “Delegating the hitting on you to Traveller Me, definitely an excellent, A+ decision.”

Steve said, “What?”

Local Him came off the desk and shoved Tony gently aside, taking his place in Steve’s lap and his turn to kiss him.

Rogers moaned, his eyelashes fluttering shut, and let him, opening up under his mouth while his hands—strong but in this case gentle—wrapped around Local Tony and pressed him against his chest, precisely as if he were precious and long-desired and a wish finally coming true.

Which he was, of course.

Tony watched them for a minute, but in the end, he had to turn away.  They deserved some privacy, after all, and anyway, he had to change back into his own clothes for the return voyage.  

And also, it hurt too damned much to watch the two of them get together when he knew it was something he and _his_ Steve could never have.

 

* * *

 

“Miss Maximoff,” he said, greeting her pleasantly and re-emerging into the kitchen, now dressed in his own (yet again clean and pressed) clothes and with his pump charged one last time before departing.  

She turned.  

Her clothing was strange, but the face was familiar enough to be recognizable—and who else would it have been?—although her coloring was paler than he was used to, her features less dramatic.  As with Rhodey, the disparity was disconcerting.  In her case, though, even more disconcerting was her expression: surprised, almost dismayed that he had recognized her, and confused at his presence and his attire.

“...I take it we’re not close in this world?”

Her eyes widened.  “It’s a... developing relationship,” she said cautiously.  “So you’re saying we... _are_ close... in your world?”  

The degree of incredulity with which she said it was not flattering.

“Well, we’re not sworn siblings or anything—”  

Which was good, because he had two of those already and they got him into endless trouble.  

“—but we get along well, and we’ve worked on several missions together.”  He offered her a friendly smile.  “I’m sure you and Local Me can become friends if you work at it.”

She stared at him, then offered a clearly fake smile of her own.  It would have been insulting, except that she looked so confused and upset, it would have been like being insulted that a freshly-splashed cat wasn’t purring.

“At any rate,” he continued hastily, “I understand you’re going to be checking our work on this device?”

“I’m going to be making sure you don’t destroy the universe,” she corrected with an achingly familiar mild sarcasm.  

The Vision chose that moment to enter the room through the floor.  They both turned and blinked at him, but Wanda didn’t comment on his appearance, and Tony was damned if he was going to be the first to do so, so he returned to the discussion.  “Yes,” he said, referring to not destroying the universe.  “That.”  

He smiled charmingly, and she, obediently, seemed to attempt to be charmed.

If only that smile worked on everyone, he mused to himself.

He felt odd, getting ready to go home.  This world... it had come with some devastating blows to his ego.  He was used to being the best, on top of the world and at the top of his game, and here, he just... wasn’t.

But he was still _him,_ still with strengths no one else had— even Other Him.  If it hadn’t been for him, Steve and Local Him wouldn’t be coming in looking quite so mussed, now.  Steve wouldn’t have that dopey smile on his face; Local Him wouldn’t have that impish glint in his eyes.  

So that was something.  Just not the something he was used to, he supposed.

Yes, he had been humbled here.  But gently, and he hadn’t been broken.

And, at any rate, it was time to go back.

“Do you have the device?” he asked lightly as Local Him dropped into one of those wheel-equipped (why?) chairs at the conference-type table outside the kitchen.  (Local Him looked suspiciously boneless, and he was simultaneously impressed by and exasperated with the both of them.)

Steve reached out and dropped the clear-lidded carrying box on the table.  In it, the device rested like a gemstone, its shimmering surface obscuring the frosted-looking data points within.  “You two got this all planned out, now?” he asked.

Tony snorted, and Local Tony rolled his eyes.  “Yes, mother,” they chorused, then sent each other alarmed looks.  

“Oh, god, please just use it,” Maximoff quipped.  

The Tonies exchanged another, longer glance.  

“It was good working with you,” Tony said.  His voice came out quieter than he had planned it, almost affectionate, and soft.  

“Same,” Local Him said.  He flicked his eyes towards Steve.  “On all kinds of projects.”

Tony held out a hand, and Local Him snorted before knocking it aside.  He stepped in and gave Tony a hug, instead, which... was better, yes.  Tony smiled, feeling warmed inside, and hugged back.

When they had released each other, Tony turned to Steve.  For a moment, he was completely out of words—what on earth could be _appropriate,_ as well as conveying all his thoughts?—but then Steve reached out, and hugged him, too.  “Stay safe,” he said firmly.  “And maybe...”  He pulled back, looking at Tony speculatively while holding him at arm’s length.  “Maybe try that thing you were thinking was too hopeless to try.  I have a _sudden and recent suspicion_ that it might be more successful than you think.”  He jerked his head in the direction of Local Tony, who waggled his eyebrows.

Tony smiled, but his heart wasn’t in it.  It was lovely that this Steve had succeeded with his Tony, of course, but that didn’t mean the theory could be applied across the multiverse; obviously, there were more than a few differences between their worlds, after all.  

Still.

“Thank you,” he said.  “And you, too—stay safe.”  

And if he kept close to Steve and the friendly arm he had tossed around him as he went to go pick up the device, well...  No one would comment on it.

Or if they did, it wasn’t like Tony would be able to hear them.

 

* * *

 

“Talking” to the device—they never had found a better name for it— was bizarre.  He had to get his thoughts and arguments—the strategy they had settled on was persuading the device that it should return him home, precisely as if it were an interlocutor—arranged and presented before picking it up, and then just hope that they were sufficient.

The device started to emanate a faint pink glow, and behind him Tony felt Steve stepping away.  

It was eerie, almost as if there were an insect crawling on him, only instead of being on his skin, the sensation was in his mind.  He felt sifted, like flour through a mill, but the only influence from the device which he could detect was in the form of a question:

_Are you sure????_

Tony thought of the way Steve had looked, arching up underneath him, of the expression on Wanda’s face as she had stared at him.  He thought of the just-different-enough appearance of Rhodey, of the mechanical marvels he had found in his other self’s workshop.  He thought of the look on Steve and Other Tony’s faces as they kissed for the first time.

He thought of Steve’s _sudden and recent suspicion._

It would never work in his universe, he knew.  There was no way his Steve would be interested.

Still.

It might be worth trying...

...and, at any rate, home was home.

 _Yes,_ he thought at the device.   _Yes, I’m sure._

 

 

**AUTHOR'S NOTES:**

 

Thank you all so much for reading! Just in case you're interested, have a couple of links.

The title comes from [this](https://youtu.be/Ha4lUNjm9i8), and do yourself a favor and turn the sound on, because good heavens, that man has a voice like black velvet!  (  https://youtu.be/Ha4lUNjm9i8  )

There's also some mention of a high-tech new storage; I extrapolated that, since computer programs are essentially stored data (kinda?) that the memory crystals will give rise to more complex, tiny machines. The memory crystals referred to are [these](http://money.cnn.com/2016/02/17/technology/5d-data-storage-memory-crystals/), which I'm almost certain we see MCU Tony utilizing in Age of Ultron.  ( http://money.cnn.com/2016/02/17/technology/5d-data-storage-memory-crystals/  )

 

**END CREDITS SCENE**

 

There were a lot of places and times where he might have found himself, when the device deposited him at home.   _Right where he had been in the instant after he left_ had been a favorite, followed immediately by _tucked into the infirmary after an amount of time equal to that spent off-world._

He was wrong on both counts; the device, apparently, wasn’t limited by time any more than it was by space or dimension or multiverse.

As to time: it was late, near midnight if he had to guess.  Certainly, the space he was in— a tent, to judge by the way the wind sounded outside of the duck-cloth walls— was completely dark.

And as to place:  He appeared to be back in their camp.  

In the sleeping quarters, actually.

More specifically, in the tent assigned to Steve Rogers, judging by the softly-snoring form next to him.

More specifically _still,_ in the tent assigned to Steve Rogers, who was sleeping in the _nude._

Well, then.

He couldn’t say he’d never wished for this, but he had certainly never anticipated that he would achieve it in quite this way!  

Moving slowly, trying to make as little noise as possible, he eased himself towards the edge of the sleeping roll, inching his toes over to touch down on the warm dirt ground, and the gently, _gently_ shifting his weight so that he was able to rise from the bed.  This was the delicate part.  Steve wasn't particularly sharp of hearing without his Serum, but he *was* perfectly able to tell when someone was moving the surface he was sleeping on; Tony would have to be careful.

He almost made it.  He was rising from the semi-crouch he had taken while rising off the bed, almost standing fully erect, when he caught a whiff of the smoke in the room.  From an oil lamp, by the scent, although it could as easily have been from the brush fire the men would set to clear and warm the ground before erecting the tents.  It didn't matter; either way, Tony sneezed so loudly you might have thought it was the trumpet of an elephant, and Steve sat bolt-upright in his bedroll.

"Damn," said Tony, with feeling.

"Damn!" said Steve, with astonishment.  

Then he squinted at Tony.  "Stark?  Er...  What are you doing here?"

"It's a long story...  I'll give you a moment if you would like to get some clothes on, first."  Tony backed, politely, away from the sleeping bag.  

"No need," Steve yawned, reaching out to pat the end of the bedroll, by his feet.  "Here, pull up some blanket.  Tell me what happened, everything."

"It's a long story," Tony joked, eyeing the fabric as if it had personally betrayed him before settling in.  Steve's feet kicked gently against his hip when he had done so, though, and he wasn’t quite quick enough to suppress a smile.  "It turns out, there are other versions of the universe..."

Steve smiled, trusting and eager, and leaned forward to hear the tale.  Tony couldn't quite help jumping, though, when Steve reached out and took his hand, any more than he could help the stubborn swirl of hope trying to climb out of his mangled heart.

 _No,_ his brain insisted.  

But his heart remembered the alternate universe's Steve, and it said, _Maybe..._  

_Maybe._

  
  
  



End file.
